I have a new appreciation for doctors and nurses… It took a weekend being stuck in a hospital to knock some humility into me.
The reason for my ER visit began when I noticed some fatigue and a subtle, dull weight on my chest. I was struggling to walk up San Francisco’s hills, and I felt like I wanted to sleep constantly. With heart disease and three stents, I was spooked.
Even still, I waited a week before I finally hopped on a video call with my doctor. He was worried about a blood clot, given the chest pressure and fresh swelling in my left leg.
He sent me straight to urgent care. I called my children, Cal and Liz, who came over to the hospital.
If you take one practical piece of advice from this, never go through an emergency alone.
Their presence was an anchor, and I recommend that everyone bring a fresh set of eyes and ears, especially when you are running on half power.
The leg swelling and chest symptoms fast-tracked me from triage to the ER. The intake nurse came from an entire family of emergency medicine professionals. I felt safe the minute she started working.
The ER feels like stepping onto the set of a movie you’ve watched a dozen times.
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The tests and results came fast.
Nothing catastrophic showed up, but this heart of mine was clearly working overtime with frequent premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), an unusually low heart rate, and episodes of mild angina— slight pressure on my chest.
They admitted me to a room with a sunny view of the city, and later, I was joined by a roommate— a quiet Japanese gentleman who owned a local bookstore and played music. His calm presence alone settled the room.
What struck me was that the people working my floor, at times, looked as strained as my heart felt. God, nurses do grueling, essential work. They meet you at your most stripped-down and vulnerable and handle it with dignity: the flimsy gown, tangled in leads, bruised by IV needles, and all.
Doctors are also stretched thin, running between rooms in a system that demands two hours of administrative paperwork for every hour spent with a human being. I’m still amazed their diagnostic precision never slips.
Eventually, an attending physician pulled together the entire picture, including the notes and previous tests I had logged in AI.
The diagnosis was that my heart suffered from a cascade of bad timing.
San Francisco had been baking in an unusual heat wave, and I was severely dehydrated. To compound it, I had recently increased my Ozempic dose and started a new medication to reduce nighttime bathroom trips.
Note to self (and others): GLP-1 medications blunt your thirst signals along with your appetite—making severe dehydration dangerously easy to miss.
Stack high heat on top of fluid-altering drugs and zero thirst drive, and you’ve got a perfect storm mimicking a major cardiac event. The experts confirmed the good news that my ticker was structurally sound. And the incident precipitated making some tweaks to my heart meds that everyone could agree on. And I have a new mantra: stay hydrated.
The longevity movement often gets drunk on its own narrative, dismissing hospital medicine as mere "sick care." I’ve been guilty of that skepticism myself.
People like my daughter-in-law, Sophie, a physician who straddles this line every day, remind me what I’m missing with a ‘sick care’-only perspective.
She has a sharp clinical mind and genuine bedside warmth, and she wants to practice prevention without abandoning acute care. She is the bridge modern medicine desperately needs. So are doctors like her.
Healthcare workers hold the line under taxing conditions. They absorb staffing cuts, insurance bureaucracy, brutal shifts, and an endless stream of patients armed with high emotions and AI ‘diagnoses,’ yet they always show up with steady hands.
I walked out of that hospital with an intact heart, less ego, and deep gratitude for the people who keep the floor running and me alive.
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